Power Struggle: The Future of the Pilgrim Power Plant

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A 3-part original reporting series.

With the end of its 40-year license arriving in 2012, the owners of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth have applied for a 20-year extension. But opponents of the plant, including some local and state politicians, question the reactor's safety, especially after three sister reactors in Japan experienced explosions and likely meltdowns in the past year. Sean Corcoran reports.

About 30 protesters gathered in the bitter cold outside the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Monday, January 9. With hand-made signs and shouted slogans, they welcomed a team of special investigators from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC workers are on hand for their third and final week of intensive inspections at the troubled plant.

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — On a Saturday morning in October, volunteer John Lamb greeted cars at the Eddy Elementary School in Brewster. One of those cars held Al and Kathy Wyman, who came to get their potassium iodine.

PLYMOUTH — Mary Lampert stepped down from the dais at Harvard Medical School and reacted to an audience member's assertion that within 5 years there would be a federal repository for spent nuclear fuel.

“Well, I now believe in Santa Claus because the whole thing is going to be resolved in 5 years,” she said. “And maybe the Easter bunny too.”